Volkswagen GTI

The GTI is the car that invented the hot-hatch segment back in 1983, and since the new model remains true to its plaid-cloth-upholstered roots, we bestow upon it a 10Best award. It comes in three- and five-door hatchback versions; the base engine is a 210-hp 2.0-liter direct-injected turbo four. VW’s six-speed automatic is optional, as is a Performance package that nets an extra 10 hp, beefier brakes, and a torque-sensing limited-slip diff. Or are you holding out for the next Golf R? Instrumented Test – 2015 Volkswagen GTI

2015 Volkswagen GTI

The seventh-gen GTI sets a high bar.

Every so often, an automaker just gets a car right. Everything feels in sync with everything else. Nothing draws attention to itself, which calls attention to the car as a whole. The Volkswagen GTI is one such car.

We Haven’t Even Started It Yet

From the moment you open the door of the new, seventh-generation Volkswagen GTI, there’s an overwhelming sense of quality and precision. All cars need seats, but no other car has these. We can think of few cars in any class at any price that wouldn’t benefit from benchmarking these seats. In fact, never mind benchmarking them: just admit you won’t do better, and buy them from Volkswagen. Take or leave the plaid cloth—we’ll gladly take it—but the padding and the size, shape, and position of the bolsters are perfect whether you’re slogging down the highway or doing unspeakable things on a lonely back road. They offer uncommon comfort and support in an interior with commendable space for people front and rear and for stuff out back. The steering wheel, too, is as fully realized a piece as you’ll find in any car today. The diameter and cross section of the rim, the flat bottom, the split bottom spoke, and the blend of chrome and matte silver trim all make this a sensational thing to grab hold of. We’ll also write a love letter to the shifter, with its golf-ball-dimpled knob resting on a split tee. If you have a pen handy, you’ll derive unreasonable joy from poking it through the shifter.

Even the exterior, as reserved as it is, is elegantly reserved. Sure, it’s basically a box, but it’s a stylishly chamfered box. This GTI is 2.1 inches longer than its predecessor, 0.5 inch wider, and 1.1 inches less tall. Since Volkswagen’s highly variable MQB architecture dictates a set distance between the front-wheel center line and pedal box, those front wheels move forward 1.7 inches, granting the GTI more-pleasing proportions.

Many Qualitative Benefits

MQB also raises the GTI’s mix of high-strength steel. Whereas its predecessor’s body in white was made up of six percent of the stuff, the seventh-gen car contains 28 percent. The result is a stiff structure that continues the GTI’s reputation for impeccable road manners. Excellent body control makes for a disciplined highway ride that is serene without being floaty. Tear into a two-lane corner at an ill-advised speed, though, and it feels just as adept, with a balance that belies the fact that 61 percent of its weight rides over the nose and a limited-slip front differential effortlessly puts the power down on corner exit. Volkswagen’s XDS brake-based differential-mimicking system is standard on seventh-gen GTIs, but cars like ours that are equipped with the optional $1495 Performance package get a real LSD. Also standard is a Driving Mode Selection system. It allows the driver to choose between Normal and Sport settings for the steering assist, drivetrain, and synthesized engine sound, or mix elements from the two modes under the Individual setting. For another $800, you can add adaptive dampers and tweak their settings in this menu as well. But even professional whiners like us have a hard time imagining how the variable dampers might improve the GTI. Fitted with summer-only Bridgestone Potenza S001s, it achieved 0.91 g of lateral grip on the skidpad.

The Performance package also has revised engine programming and larger brakes, up 1.1 inches to 13.4 in the front and 1.5 inches to 12.2 in the back, the latter switching from solid to vented discs. The pedal controlling those brakes is firm and progressive, and the Bridgestones latch on for a 163-foot stop from 70 mph. That revised engine programming holds onto peak torque for a couple extra hundred rpm, stretching peak horsepower from the regular GTI’s 210 at 4500 rpm to 220 at 4700. As with the sixth-gen car—over which it boasts advantages of as much as 20 hp and 51 lb-ft of torque—the new GTI delivers its power in a seamless swell all the way to its 6800-rpm redline. A 0-to-60-mph time of 5.8 seconds won’t shock your passengers in the way that makes for good YouTube videos, but that just means you get to wring out the turbo four longer before drawing undue attention. The shapely shifter’s action through the gates is light and tight, and the clutch boasts better feel than the outgoing car’s.

Gnat-Sized Nits

If forced to pick nits, we’ll go with these: The gas and brake pedals are spaced a little too far apart for even this author’s size 15s; less-gigantic folks are in trouble when it comes to heel-and-toe shifting. And there are other cars—the Ford Focus ST, for example—that manage better-balanced handling from their front-drive platforms. But not even the Focus mixes that balance with the space and livable civility of the GTI. To the five-door’s base price of $25,815, our example added the aforementioned $1495 Performance package and the $995 Lighting package, which includes bixenons that steer with the car, bringing the total to $28,305. That’s getting pricey, but this rare level of excellence is worth it. The GTI doesn’t just feel better than its predecessor; it feels better than almost any other car on the road today.

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